Olympians the beauty of relationship

Updated: Aug 3

This week watching the Olympics I was mesmerized by the synchronised diving.

What a feast for our eyes and a privilege to witness such talent, achievement and joy.

Thoughts drifting through my mind as they do, I thought how much the art of the synchronised togetherness was filled with grace, harmony and precision. Thinking this result winning a silver medal must be through hard work and practice lots and lots of practice.

Listening to Tom Daley and Noah Williams talking on sky sports after winning the silver medal, I was struck by what Tom said, that he and Noah had only been working together since November and only had two months training together.

WOW what an achievement they have under their belts with so little practice time together. Noah went on to say, “they were happy surprised how their partnership worked”. It was obvious that even though the relationship has grown quickly, they have synchronized their individual skills beautifully to achieve a medal.

Listening, it also struck me how alike their partnership journey is to the counselling relationship, in that its surprising, how, in a short time, great things can be achieved together for clients on route to building mental health, wealth and happiness.

Because the relationship between the divers needs to be one of collaboration both mentally and physically, trust, respect, consistency because it forms the foundations for their success. With the diving pair working together utilising individual and partnership skills combined in unison to achieve the perfect synchronisation.

Indeed forming a strong connection through their relationship empowers both divers as individuals and a duo to bring the best out of their personal and collective skills. They have hurdles to overcome individually and as a collective, standing on the springboard before they takeoff. No doubt they are going over and over in their minds how the dive will go, will one, the other or both balk? Will the partners feet leave the platform precisely at the same time to be synchronised, lots of questions, thoughts will pass through their minds before lift off actually takes place.

Akin to a first counselling session when depth of relating, rapport, reciprocity, sharing and cooperation between the duo are being established. Individually the divers and the individuals in the counselling dyad have to contain their moment-by-moment tensions in order to give their attention to the mutuality and the cooperation of the parties working together for desired end goals. This is through focusing intuitively making contact with our internal bodily awareness our intrinsic knowing for many this will be out of awareness but it will still be being utilised subconsciously. Before synchronisation or attunement can take place

Parallel to the divers the therapeutic relationship is strong in communication both in explicit conscious awareness and the implicit or subconscious dynamic processing, both pairings engaging in empathy and attunement. As we tune into the other we resonate with the others moment-by-moment experiencing, known as concrete experiencing, our felt sense. Which is the bodily felt experience rather than the cognitive thought processing, our lived experiences offering a rich source of information if we can listen to and tune in.

Empathy is stepping into the others shoes so we can sense "a flow of experiencing" as suggested by Gendalin, we are attuning, to the powerful present moment of the other diver or client. That is we 'feel' into the other to understand them and what actions they may be about to take intuitively, humans are feeling beings, yet we are not our feelings because we have other internal processor such as memory, intuition and thoughts for example. All working together in synchronisation to create a balanced and harmonious being, when this is achieved we have more happiness and peace in our daily living.

The counsellor setting the core conditions within the time and space of the session, empowering intrinsic wisdom, courage, identity. Encouraging client autonomy, a separate sense-of-self for both client and counsellor and remaining focused on the clients agenda. The counsellor working consistently in harmony with the client to create a container for the counselling work to be utilised. To bring about positive outcomes, healing, growth and development for the client.

The counselling relationship as the divers is fundamental to the outcomes for the client as the divers is to successfully winning a medal, to achieve the meeting of their own needs, enabling clients to explore, clarify, understand behaviours, gain self-awareness and resolve or accept and work to wards positive changes to enhance their overall health and well-being.

The Olympian Tom also has a pastime of the art of knitting and he can be seen sat poolside with his needles and yarn creating some masterpiece, what a relaxing thing to do to help release tension and stress. It was refreshing to see their tearful respect for their families and those who have supported them throughout their years of training and to hear Noah express his emotions telling us all that both of them cried before their dives and they've both cried a lot throughout these games. No doubt with the magnitude of the event, the nervous energy getting released and their personal experiencing within it.

These similarities shine a golden light upon the importance of relating in harmony, collaboration, trust and perseverance in one's craft and to reach your goals. Empowering a relational presence, grounded in transparency ,to bring about successful outcomes for all and meaningful progress towards making us all champions and winners.

If you're feeling stuck, out of balance and want to get back to being able to attune to yourself and others or want to explore coping strategies give me a call. or contact me via this form.

I offer a free 30 mins video call so we can meet before our first session. Contact me at email: pendulumofpeace8@gmail.com text or Whatsapp message to 07867938630 and lets connect and realise your fullest potentials.

Together we can

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